


Why the tartan

by Escritora2Aliasfox



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 13:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12059883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Escritora2Aliasfox/pseuds/Escritora2Aliasfox
Summary: Crowley finds a side to the angel he could have never guessed.well, maybe he should have, with all that tartan.





	1. Chapter 1

Crowley got up with a slight head ache, for the fifth consecutive time that week.  
It was nothing he couldn’t support, but, oddly enough, miracling it away didn’t work, neither did pills. He had had it for a while now, it went on and off irregulary, but this week it was a constant when waking up.

The demon went for a walk in search for someone who’s day he could ruin early in the morning, and some fresh air.

He found himself walking towards the park, and to his anointment it was getting worse. So he decided to call it off, turn around and stay in bed.

Was he getting sick or…?  
Wait, as he walked away, he started feeling better.  
Now that was relieving. Encouraged, he turned around once more, and went for the park, again.

And the pain returned.

Crowley stood still. Something wasn’t right. He had a suspicion growing on the back of his head …but couldn’t quite concentrate with the blessed head ache. He made a little experiment: He kept walking towards the park, the pain growing stronger, and then, kept walking straight, leaving the place behind.

And it eased again.

It was not casual. There was something in the park making him sick. What could it be?

‘Do I want to know?’ He asked himself. Curiosity killed the cat. Whatever it was, if it was making him sick from afar, perhaps it could be really dangerous if he got too close?

…Bullocks.

He decided to take just a peek. Just enough to know what was hurting him like this. If it was too bad he could just run away and get better. Right?  
He deliberately walked into the park, dizziness adding to the pain. Looked around, saw nothing, and kept walking. 

As he did so, he found he could tell where to go by the blood pulsating on his head. He breathed deeply, forced himself to relax, and concentrate. His corporation felt the natural urge for oxygen, but he did not.  
With his demonic powers (witch he normally only used for things like miracling money or confounding people) he forced his body into a trance, and his aura to brace itself for the task.

And it… eased down. So to say. The head ache lowered to a supportable level. The sensation odd dizziness turned into a vibration on his skull, similar to the tinker of a metallic triangle, witch he could use as a compass.

Determined, like once ha had been to hunt down a certain angel, he went thru the park like it was a maze, guided by the dizziness vibrating on his brain, the trail of slight pain.  
He could feel it closer and closer, like he was chasing an animal that had been barking at him or eating his lettuce…

And suddenly, it was behind him.

He turned, looked around. Nothing odd.

At this time in the morning there was not much people there, most of them going somewhere.

Nearby there was a bench, and behind it, trees. Was there some short of holy relic buried among those trees? Pretending to be casual, Crowley got past the railing… and felt cold sweat down his back. He looked over his shoulder.

It was on the bench. Behind him.

Crowley gulped down the knot on his throat, and walked over to the bench. There was a human there. A girl. Dressing a school uniform, a coffee cup by her side, a notebook on her lap, her nose glued to the paper like if she had lost her glasses.

She must have something, Crowley thou. Some short of relic hanging of her neck, a blessing spell on her drink. Perhaps she was writing angelic symbols on that notebook of hers…

‘Excuse me’ He called her attention, and froze.

As soon as he spoke, she bolted to look at him. and a cold, sudden, creepy as fuck realization hit him. He didn’t jump and run away because he was paralyze with shock.  
Like calling up to a rabbit, that comes closer and closer, and only noticing it was a giant Argentinian rat when it is on your face.

He knew those eyes.  
Stormy blue. Eyes are the windows to the soul. He, as a demon, could sense a people’s aura, and read certain features thru their eyes, like they were digits… and this one had an impossible trait.  
Aziraphale’s.

Crowley gaped like fish. He looked her up and down. She didn’t have anything odd but in her blood. It was her aura, pooling around her that made him dizzy. A gentle, flickering energy, like that of a candle.

‘Pardon?’ the young lady asked. Crowley couldn’t respond. She had dark curls down her shoulders, fair skin filled with freckles, a skinny body that made her look innocent… and Aziraphale’s eyes.

And Aziraphale’s essence blended onto her aura. It could not be. I could not.

‘ah… ah, sorry, a…’

She was wearing a tartan blue skirt. And a matching tie. 

‘I just…’

Why it had to be tartan?

She must have though he was making a very poor attempt to hit on her. She put on an exceptional expression, put away her watercolors and notebook, and walked away drinking her coffee.

With that, faded the sensation of dizziness, like a cat hissing at Crowley from her shoulder.

Crowley didn’t want to, but he had to.  
Aziraphale was reading something while drinking tea when he came in.

“Good day my dear!” The angel said, not even lifting his gaze of the book  
“Come in, fancy some tea?”

Crowley stood in front of the table, fidgeting. How to say this?

“why, sit down” Aziraphale shot him one glance “…is there something bothering you?”

Little things did bother them anymore. Crowley was paranoid, like any healthy demon, but he usually would sit down to drink and chat with him. Not this time.  
Aziraphale knew him enough to tell when he was nervous even when pretending.

He sat straight. After six thousand years, they could talk with glances, like experienced couples do. 

‘What is it?’ Crowley breathed deeply, gulped and pretended casualty.

“Did… you ever have sex with a human?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale tells his story  
> (or, well. Their story)

Silence.

Aziraphale’s cup froze on the way to his lips.  
Just like he had done, Crowley could read his eyes now.  
Aziraphale didn’t answer, due to shock. 

He tried thou. Eventually.  
“My…dear. What makes you think so?”

And it could not be. It was impossible. It had to be a coincidence. There were many other angels… but Crowley saw right thru Aziraphale’s petty attempt of casualty.  
He was scared as fuck.  
No way.

“I ah… when did this happen?”  
“No. I mean. I have no idea what your suggesting dear”

Crowley nodded. He had no idea how to continue this conversation. He would like to pretend nothing had happened but he was incapable. 

“…I just encountered a nephilim on the park today”

Aziraphale’s cup went back to the table unesteadily and dropped half its content. The angel didn’t notice.

“wh… what?” he said with the most british accent ever. And then he reiterated, with more energy “What”

Crowley kept staring at nowhere, eyebrows up, still in shock. Getting over the fact that the angel was, indeed responsible. And just didn’t fully get it.  
It could not be. Aziraphale got up the table, dropping the chair backwards into the floor, and walked towards the door, and it could still not be.

“She’s no longer there”  
“…She?”

Crowley shruged “I think I scared her away… kind of”

“What did you do to her?”

Crowley lifted his gaze. He was surprised to find Aziraphale looked a lot like an angry mama cat. It just didn’t fit!

“How could this happen?” Crowley asked.  
“What did you do you Demon!” Aziraphale’s aura fumed with anger and Crowley’s head spined again. Like in the old days. Crowley had almost forgotten this side of the angel: Before he got so used to a cozy life in the couch, once, he used to be a warrior.

“Nothing, I just passed by, Her aura kind of… reacted to me, I guess in instinct… I tried to speak to her but she felt offended and walked away. Really”

The energy concentrated around the angel slowly dropped until it felt like a quiet mist all around the bookshop. His face was unfocused. He looked kind of lost.

“Who is she?” Crowley went on, calmer, now. The angel took a moment to answer.  
“I don’t know” He sat down on a cranky chair that had just appeared (a poor miracle, really) “…I don’t know her”

Crowley tentatively walked towards him. With a snap of his fingers, they were sitting at the table again, a cup of wine in front of each one, and Crowley filled them with a very expensive red bourbon.  
Aziraphale’s gaze was still lost. He didn’t take the cup. He didn’t want to talk. He had hoped he would never have to.  
Crowley decided to be the mature one and take the first sip. When he looked again, Aziraphale was glaring at him accusingly.

“What?”  
“…” sigh “You… I would ask you not to say anything. But that wouldn’t change anything right?”  
“Honestly, angel! What threat can I be to you? After all we’ve been thru. I can not go to heaven and hell wants my head too even if I gave them something… juicy They would still make pudding of me if they could”

Aziraphale looked back down at the table

“…wich they can’t. Remember? Adam is protecting us. He owns the earth. We are part of it now somehow so, actually. Whatever this is… It doesn’t matter. See?”

Aziraphale lifted his eyebrows “I had never thoug about that” ... "My, it has been so long" ... "It never occurred to me"  
Crowley waited. The angel sighed again and took the cup from the table. Gulped it down on one go. Crowley took another sip. Aziraphale refilled his cup. 

“Remember Culloden?”  
“Hum… when?”  
“1745. More or less”  
“Aah, right. You were wearing a kilt”

Aziraphale drank again.

“It looked nice on you, even in battle. You had an… slightly different body… with dark hair”  
“Shit” Aziraphale drunk more. Crowley had a bad feeling.  
“What happened in culloden?”

Aziraphale was staring at the swirling wine on his hand with a pitiful expression.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know. It was… so very human. So intense”  
He drank again. Crowley couldn’t believe it.  
“It was then. You… you did… something”  
“No Not then I…” He breathed deeply “It was long before. The land… I fell in love with it. The people… the culture… remember it?”  
“…Not really that much. You kicked me away like, three times in a row”

After that, he had gone find another place to make evil, and he hadn’t encountered the angel for a long while. It was little after that they the Arrangement was made.

“I was... the culture was so rich. The people so… deep. I don’t know how it happened.  
Humans were starting to be very… complex. Their family structures, their beliefs, their were so strong and so… beautifull. The law was starting to be… something firm, reliable… I decided to stay, and watch its development. ...And I got involved”  
“Well, that’s an understatement, I think!”  
“You… quiet you! …You know… what the kilt meant?”

Crowley shruged his nose.

“the colors, the pattern had a meaning. Depending of what clan you belonged to, which family. It changed throu time. At first, It was not just a skirt, it was a tunic…”  
“Oh my… Manchester. It was then. Then is wen you went natal. It was then and there when you…” The demon looked around, and for the first time in so long, he noticed something that had always been there. It had always seemed such a stupid tiny thing. And now it made sense.

The tartan. It was all around them. On his clothes, on the stupid mantle of the table, the curtains… it didn’t matter that it was not fashionable, nor that the colors didn’t fit. Aziraphale never cared. He was always wearing something.

“No way!”  
“They… they wouldn’t listen to me if I didn’t belong to some clan alright? I had to be someone from some family, I had to have a name or they wouldn’t trust me! I tried, at first to be a druid. And for a time it worked. It did work for a very long time, but then…”  
“What?”  
“…I was run over by a sheep”  
“…”

Crowley broke into laughter.  
“Shut up!”  
Crowley kept laughting. He took his cup and leaned over the table  
“I want all the details”  
“…I was a druid. For many, many years. And I was wise and fair…”  
“Righteous. Angelic. Lovely. Uhm?”  
“…Many from different clans came to me for advice. They did try to… encourage me to get closer to one side or the other, but I did my best. They ended up suspecting that I was immortal”  
“wait, it is true, so they didn’t suspect it: they guessed it”  
“Anywais” Aziraphale got another cup down his gut “I did end up going closer to one of the clans, just this once, because, you see, their leader was a righteous man, and they had a good point and…  
“You took sides? Oh angel” Crowley rested his face in a hand, in a mocking gesture.  
“I did it for… reasons. …And that is the least of it”  
“Continue” Crowley sipped some more wine. Aziraphale gulped. 

It looked like the angel would be very drunk before the demon, and so Crowley could listen closely to all the details of his story.

“One day, I was walking by the rift, contemplating the beautifull landscapes… then one of those blessed animals went nuts and I didn’t have time to fly. I was discorporated”  
“Right. So what?”  
“I… I was desperate. For the first time. It wasn’t like other times, when I just pouted at the loss of whatever scroll I was holding, or the cover or the few friends that I had made… This time, there was something Important to go back and fight for. There was a war coming, many lifes at stake… I had to get back inmediatly, regain my place next to the ruler, gain back his trust… all from scratch. …So I took a different approach. A warrior, some lost child from a good family… and I, slowly, crept my way back into the family”  
“…perhaps… a little too deep?”

Aziraphale didn’t drink anymore. His face torn into one of deep sadness and far away memories. What he had had in Culloden no one could know. He could never tell.  
Words poured of him like water kept under great pressure for too long.

He told Crowley everything. The big things and the little things. And all of the strange things that had been on his heart, witch was not meant for it, for the first time.  
The war was long and complicated. He worked hard his way into it. He tried his best to help them. They kept killing each other but he allways tried for the best.

He made friends, and lost friends, and died several times and tried again. He got used to it. He liked it. It was home. It was his life.

Eventually, there was this girl, from the family he had been serving for many corporations. A lady with warrior spirit, and still a gentle soul. For a time Aziraphale had though that she was a fellow angel in disguise. He had many odd and funny encounters with her. They had been friends… and something grew over that frinedship.

At some point, they lost one big battle. They were cornered. He should have left her.  
She would die, like so many others, and he would keep with his task for the greater good… but he couldn’t do that. She was his friend. The daughter of a good friend. Sister of friends, Granddaughter of…

So, he took her hand, and run away with her. Spend the night in the woods, cold and hungry, and scared of the enemy’s dogs. He knew they would get captured: she would die and he would be discorporated. But it didn’t happen.

Crowley drank more wine. It kept going on. It was a story generations long. 

They survived throu the night, and the nights after. Managed to escape to some little land far enough from battle to hide.  
Amazed, she asked him when he learned to make fire, build cover, and sustent from wild plants. He couldn’t tell her that he had been there since before agriculture was invented. He asked her what she would do now.

Aziraphale took a moment to breath and drink and kept spouting strangled words.

With her courage and determination, and his intelligence and loyalty, they managed to climb from nothing to the top, little by little, together.  
When the war was fading, they were guests to someone else’s family… and she had to marry.

He encouraged her to marry one of their guest’s sons… but none was a very good option (one a child, the other a brute) and she just couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t take her.

“Do you find me horrendous, is that it?” she had asked, with tears on her eyes “Have I offended you in some way? Do you still blame me for the sacrifices you had to…?”

And he had to embraced her. He really had to. He held her tight and told her that it was not so. He loved her. He did. With all his heart. …and was shocked to find his words absolutely honest.

Crowley slowly denied with his head. “I don’t believe it”  
“…”  
“you married her?”  
“…what else could I do? Abandon her? …I loved her. I could have discorporated myself and pretend it was an accident… but what would be of her then?”  
“You did marry her”  
“…In my defense” Aziraphale was quite drunk at this point and still drinking  
“I was hoping she would not be happy and cheated on me, at some point…”

Crowley gave him a face. Aziraphale refused to look. Both knew it was a poor excuse.

They had been happy. Like not many couples are. He had been so shocked, for how fast she was left pregnant. He had been so lost, so terrified.

When holding his son, he had never been so lost.  
It was undeniably human, like the rest of them, but it had something of himself.  
He had been terrified, but no punishment came.  
His wife was so happy, and their baby grew fast and healthy strong and intelligent like his father, and so did his siblings.

Crowley stared at him in disbelief.  
“How many?”  
… “Three” He gaped.  
“It was not much, at the time”  
“Three nephilim. Of yours. In culloden”  
… and there was more.

Eventually, Aziraphale had to miracle himself an aging face, and grey hair, to fit those of his wife.  
She was smiling when she died. He held her hand, and she made him promise he would look after their kids.

Aziraphale weeped. Her kind soul would no doubt go to heaven, but he would miss her. …and he could never tell her what he was. What their children were.

His two sons and daughter grew into beautiful and strong creatures. He never told them what they were. He tried to control them in secret, keep their nature at bay, hoping it wouldn’t be obvious, hoping it would fade.

The oldest one was just like him. With a lot of his mother. He was proud to be loyal and honorable. He married well, and, following his advice, avoided war as much as he could, no matter the trouble it caused.

His little daughter was a swirl of life and energy. Allways smiling, always in movement. After she learned to ride there was no way to get her off the horse. She knew each legend, song and joke from memory, and of course, she had the voice of an angel.  
To marry her off to someone from a different family filled him with rage. But he had no choice. It was her life.  
He had been this close, several times, to tell her what she was, so that she could take care of herself if she needed.

…and there was the middle one. A rebellious boy, clumsy and smart like him. Eager for adventure and fantasy. Aziraphale tried to teach him to stay low, and it only made them argue. He had a horrible sensation once he asked him were did his sword go.  
‘Dunno. I’ll lose my head next time’ Aziraphale knew the boy had probably damaged it in a fight witch he had forbidden to participate in. …He wondered if this is how God had felt when it had been him.

He stood close to his family as long as he could. And when people started commenting how incredibly long he was living, he realized that it had been a long ago when he completely forsaken his duty as a field agent angel, just to stay with them.  
It was time.

He was worried for them. He would miss them, He knew they would miss him… but he had to let go. He drunk some poison before going to sleep, something that would not be noticed, and left his corporation and his life of father.

…But this was not a responsible thing to do. Right?  
In culloden there was an entire family of nephilim hybrids, and he was responsible, so he stood close.

Generation after generation, he stood close. He came back as a friend, neighbor, cousin, druid… his line prospered, the colors of their kilts changed and variated, so did the coat of arms, but he was still there.  
He was not the same man to them, but they were still his family.  
They were starting to be more than a few. He wondered if there was nothing left on them of nephilim, if it would fade after a few generations…  
One of his grandchildren was conqueror. Other, king. One decided to travel far away despite his best efforts…

Aziraphale let his mouth open and then closed it. Crowley recognized the gesture. There was something he wanted to say, but didn’t dare to.

“Continue”  
“… I didn’t even tell them any of this”  
“You know you can tell me”  
“…Perhaps if I had been sincere, I wouldn’t have lost them”

Crowley’s eyes widened. “They died?” He imagined another angel finding out and going after them, one by one, as they didn’t see it coming…  
Aziraphale denied

“No, something worse”  
“Like what?” Azirphale looked at him with an old fear on him  
“I lost their track.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, that's why

Once, there had been a nasty argument between two houses, descendants of him in both sides. He did his very best to take an important role and encourage everyone to try and gain back peace. It was not easy. A few of this humans (one here, one there, another one over there) where not just humans, but creatures similar to him. Family of him. He felt awfully like back in heaven, when the rebelion. When some of his brothers started arguing and later… falling.

There was one boy in one of the clans (he believed him to be one of his most direct descendants) who was very sick of everything. A little rebelious one just like his second boy had been.  
This one disliked him. Insisted that whatever he did with his life was no problem of his. He went into battle against a great warrior… who, he didn’t know, was related to him.

He was another direct descendant of Aziraphale.

“And what happened?” Wine forgotten. Crowley crouched over the table, willing to know…  
“They did fight. …And they were so… strong. They could not defeat each other. They tried, very hard, they tried to tear each other apart, and… They were making a mess all around! Well, I had to stop them”  
“…so?”  
“You don’t understand. They were two ferocious warriors, in the middle of a battle. In front of everyone. I was an old man from the council. Jet I walked in and held them apart”

Crowley took his hands to his head.

“In front of everyone!?”  
“Yes, I’m afraid so… I think some legends may be inspired on that particular eh… incident”  
…  
“So, what happened?”  
“I used my powers to try and make them forget it. Most people were confused but… it wasn’t working on them”  
“…your boys?”  
“Yea- don't call them that! ugh. No. I couldn’t distract them from what had happen. The two of them confronted me right there and then and I just…”  
“You told them?!”  
“Why… no! No you… Idiot! How could I explain? Even if I said the truth how would that sound?”

Crowley imagined it. In the middle of a culloden battle, a mass of people surrounding them, and Aziraphale stuttering ‘see, I am an angel, and so I am immortal, and I also happen to be your great great great…’ 

Aziraphale sighed.

“That young one confronted me again several times and… oh. How to say it…”  
“Just say it! What could be…”  
“He had wings”  
“…!”

For the first time in a while there was another silence. Heavy and thick like cold butter. Crowley made several different expressions, and then just “Uh?!”

“He… we fought. And he was surprisingly strong. And he was determined to defeat me when I wasn’t really…” sigh “suddenly, he had wings. They were there, on his back, spread open. Strong and young and…”  
“Nephilins have wings!?”  
“No, well. This one had”

Crowley fell against the back of his chair. Aziraphale finished his story.

“He flew away like he had always wanted, I guess. I tried to stop him. I chased after him with my own wings. He saw me. He was… angry and terrified. I just wanted to talk but he… well. The little bastard played a nasty trick on me and banished!”

Aziraphale didn’t say how loud he had called the boy’s name in the middle of the storm. Until his voice and hings felt shore. He didn’t try to describe his desperation when searching for him thru the falling water and the roaring wind for miles above the sea.

“…So… are Nephilim stronger than angels, or weaker?”  
“I don’t know”  
“Nor you know if their power fades with generations?”

Aziraphale denied. Crowley thou of it.  
Biologically, as more you crossbreed, less purity of blood, but genes sometimes manifest after many, many generations. Everything humans are right now desceneds from what was there the first day. …plus. What if aura doesn’t have anything to do with genetics? What if it is not in the blood, but the soul? What if it sticks, generation after generation…? What if it grows stronger?   
…  
And what if you crossbreed nephilim and nephilim? Ugh  
He was getting a head ache again.

“…I searched for him for years. He left culloden. He went somewhere else. Perhaps very far away, another continent. I couldn’t find him. When I came back, I found that… the war had gone on! Many had died, some got married, others… well. I couldn’t tell who was my descendant from who was just human anymore”  
“…so you just decided to leave ‘for now’ and hope no one would notice the whole mess?”

Aziraphale took his cup again, and drank in silence. Crowley stood there. Astonished.

In the beginning, there had been more field agents. They started forming families with humans and the result was so unexpected it was soon called off.  
The case was confusing and mysterious even in heaven, where it was a silent law not to speak of it.   
It was so to such an extent that more questions were made regarding the what happened… than the what nephilim are.

They said nephilim were uncontrollable blood thirsty monsters, but they were spoken of like normal families with children, at the time of the punishment.  
There had been no oficial studies, nor time to see what they would develop into.  
It was just something unexpected, not meant to be that had happen. A crossbreed of two of God’s creations, and there was no place for them in the plan.

Crowley had been involved on the case, and had procured to stay as far away from it as possible. No questions. No thinking of it. Leave it be and be left alone.

But, apparently, all this time, there had been a new line of nephilim in the world, and nothing had happened. No one even noticed.  
What if there were also survivors of the first nephilim families? What if humanity was crossbreed, and that’s why the plan didn’t work? Maybe that’s why so many people claimed to have powers such as seeing ghosts or being psychic…

No. He was going too far. This didn’t change anything regarding the life he had.  
It was about Aziraphale.  
He looked at the angel. He looked devastated.

 

“So. That is why you were so… contundent, back in culloden hm?”  
“Eh? Oh, ah… I guess. Just… keeping my secret form anyone of angel stock”  
“uh”  
“…”  
“So. Angel. What now?”  
“Hum? What do you mean, dear?”  
“What do you intend to do?”  
“…I don’t understand. There’s nothing to do for me, aside from hoping you won’t use this information against me”

Crowley refused to let him see his frustration.  
He wanted to feel offended that he would still worry over that possibility. He also wanted to hide that ofense. He still had an image.   
He would scream at the face of the angel to focus, but again, the poor thing seemed quite shaken right now. So he pretended silent ofense.

He put on his glasses and walked away saying “I’ll pick you up at nine”

Aziraphale was left alone, to re-organize his refreshed, confusing, centuries-old memories and worries.

Next day at nine, Crowley didn’t speak a word when the angel climbed into the Bentley.   
His head didn’t hurt anymore, for his aura was ready for the situation. He had slept sound and nicely, and he just had to finish this little task.

“Where are we going?”  
“To the park”  
“oh”

But Crowley didn’t get of the car. He stopped as close as he could from the spot he had been the day before, and when the angel looked at him questioningly, he responded.

“Concentrate. Take a look around”

Aziraphale did, and, suddenly, he was standing very still.   
Like he had seen a deer in the distance, and didn’t want to scare it off.  
He walked into the park, guided by his aura, leaving car and driver behind, and he eventually reached a bench.

There was a girl sitting there, with a coffee and a notebook.

The shock, the flurry of emotions was overwhelming. He didn’t know what to do.  
As stuck to the page as she was, eventually, she lifted her gaze to him. Wich is odd, as she had been very concentrated, as usual. But his presence did not startle her. It just called her attention.

She didn’t know, but Aziraphale flinched when he felt her aura responding to his.

“…hello?”  
“Oh. Hi. Pardon, miss, uh… may I ask, what are you doing there?”

She smiled politely

“I’m drawing the park. Today I’m making those statues from here, see?”  
Aziraphale came closer. He looked over her shoulder. He recognized the Italian statues of the women with the swans from Hyde park, from afar, across this portion of the lake, seen (drawn) from the angle the bench offered.

“My! You have talent. Ah… may I…?”

Oddly, she didn’t hesitate. The stranger gave her good vibrations.  
He sat next to her, and she showed her other pictures of her notebook:

Sketches from various buildings and statues, the corridors of the stables market, pages and pages of people sitting at the train…  
He stood there for a while, feeding the ducks and watching her draw them.  
He offered small, casual talk. She usually wouldn’t like it, but this felt nice, for some reason.

She chatted back. He had noticed what she was wearing was not a common uniform skirt: it was a kilt. She confessed she was no longer at school: the kilt was a family thing, and she liked to wear it combined with something else.  
He learned also that she had arrived not long ago from Scotland. And she had a younger brother who was willing to come live with her if she succeeded on the capital.

He wished her the best of lucks, and, when doing so, wondered if he should finally be honest, and tell her about her origins, her capacities, if it could help her…  
For now, he contented with reassuring her, and transmitting a ton of energy thru his aura to her.

She smiled, and she kept telling her of how much she would love to illustrate books or comic books…

Later on she had to leave. They said good bye politely and separated with a wide smile, thou his eyes were a bit sad.  
When he was alone, he noticed a different aura coming closer. One very well known.

“so”  
He breathed deeply  
“Thank you… eh, thank you.”  
“Uh… well” 

He was this close, this close, to say ‘what friends are for’ but he didn’t have to.

**Author's Note:**

> Funny enough, this was inspired by a little fic written by sous_le_saule titled "The Kilt"
> 
> Here goes the link (I hope. Im not good at making links work...)
> 
> Link
> 
> See? It doesn't work T-T


End file.
